Real, honest musings about following Jesus, having Aspergers, and my art.

floral

I just LOVE spring! Woohoo!! I’m so excited that winter is over, and spring is here! I’ve recently been trying out acrylic paints. They feel a lot different that oils. I love the fact that they dry quickly, so I can put another layer on in just 5-10 minutes, instead of waiting a day or two, as with oils. I’m also reading a book about how to paint in acrylics. This new acrylic adventure is really inspiring me! This book has lots and lots of new ideas, techniques, and so on. I realize that I’ve been a very traditional painter up till now, relying only on the most basic of tools and techniques. That’s fine, because it forces me to learn to draw and paint really well. However, it was starting to get a tad boring, too.

Here is a painting I did of a crabapple tree in full bloom. This tree is just a block from my house. I took a photo of it close up. My palette is titanium white, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium orange, quinacridone red, quinacridone magenta, perylene violet,

Crabapple in Full Bloom, acrylic on canvas panel, 16″ x 8″

ultramarine blue, and olive green deep. I started on a bright yellow toned canvas. This gives the painting a bright, warm feeling. I painted a bit looser than my general tendency. I made a point to allow the yellow underpainting to show through. I drew the shapes in detail on the dry underpainting, then painted it all in.

The two challenges of acrylics for me, is the fast drying time can make it hard to get a good even blend or gradation, and the color shift. I spent a lot of time researching how to deal with the color shift. They tend to dry darker than when you apply them. I bought some tubes of Winsor Newton the other day because they claim to have no color shift, but there is still a slight color shift. It’s not a big deal. I’m learning to make the paint a bit lighter than I want to be before I apply it, and to repaint areas that dry too dark.

I spent a good amount of time, many hours in fact, mixing all of my basic colors of oil paints. I got some very beautiful, complex reds from mixing yellows with red violets. I decided to try one of these mixtures for these stunning and colorful daylilies. The color of the flowers is based on a mix of cadmium yellow medium and quinacridone rose. I also used Permalba white, yellow ochre, ultramarine deep, sap green, and Van Dyke brown. I painted the background smoothly with a brush. Then, I painted in the dark shadows with a muted blue green. I painted the leaves in with a brush, from dark, to middle, to light values. I put in the flower petals and the flower throats with palette knives. I made a point to blend the back edges of the flower petals into the background somewhat to add depth. Lost and found edges are very good to have. It adds depth, and helps the positive and negative space to flow together into a unified whole.

I let this dry for a few days, then I painted in the flower buds with palette knives, then the stems. After this dried to the touch, I added some hilights, and a few minor details. In my opinion, this is one of my best floral paintings. I hope you enjoy seeing it as much as I enjoyed painting it. Here is a link to the online listing.

It’s a good thing I like to leave a painting on my easel, which is just about 10 feet from my bed. I get to glance at it in all types of light, and see what I need to do to it. I noticed that at night, I could not see the stamens, because they were the same value (level of darkness) as the bottom on the tulip cup. So today, I made a lighter green with my optical white, naples yellow, and sap green. I applied some of this to the top 2/3 of each stamen with a stippling brush, making sure not to cover up some of the underlying optical darkness. I also added some optical white to the edges of some of the petals to brighten it up a bit. I’m very pleased with the results. The lighter stamens are actually making the insides of the flower appear more luminous and colorful.

I think flowers are my favorite part of nature. In spring, I can’t help but be so enchanted by their color, their beauty, their sweetness, their fragrance. Here is a closeup of a tulip done in oil. I used Permalba white, naples yellow, permanent rose, sap green, indigo blue, and burnt umber.

I love to paint the subtle changes in value in the petals, and also the internal structures of the flower.

For some reason this tulip reminded me of my mother. This painting has a soft quality to it, and is painted mainly in cool tones.

You can’t beat pastels for color that just knocks you into the next county, as my artist mentor Jerry Thomas would say. I’m very happy with this piece that I just now finished. Believe it or not, the brilliant magenta is from a Nupastel. I’m almost out of it, and need to order some more right away. I also need to order some deep dark shadow blues and violets. I mostly used them up on this. This is a complementary color scheme of red-violet and yellow-green. I used a photo I had taken in the Missouri Botanical Garden 2 or 3 years ago as a jumping off point.

I like the warm glow in the lower right corner. The effect of bright sunshine is in this piece. I lightly stumbled orange and yellow orange over the light areas in the leaves, and in the main flower. It doesn’t shout “orange”, but it adds a warmth and vitality to this piece. It looks so much better in real life than in a photo like here. I like how the dark blues tie everything together.

Today is a very cold January day. As you can tell, I love warm, sunny, colorful days, so I’m trying to stay “up” during this winter weather. I will go to the gym now and work out.

Hey guys. The wind chill was minus 10 Farenheit when I awoke this morning. I am enjoying my day of staying at home and cooking and doing art. This morning I baked banana bread and started beef goulash in the slow cooker. Now, I just got done working on a pastel painting. I’m using a rough, toothy pastel board of about 20 inches by 16 inches. It is brick red on the front. This will help create unity in the painting, as little splotches of this will show up throughout.

I use mostly Nupastels and Unison pastels. I also use other brands, such as Schmincke, Sennelier, and others.

I started this several weeks ago. I’m using a photo as a reference point for it. I took the photo at the Missouri Botanical Garden several years ago. It was a potted plant – some type of daisy. Color is my favorite aspect of art. I’ve been told I have a strong sense of light in my paintings. I’m very glad, because this is what I aim for – color and light. Since I’m on the autistic spectrum, I also can’t help but be detailed. That is how my mind works.

As you can see, I’ve painted in the background around the flowers. I think the flowers will be easy. I’m doing a secondary color triad (green, violet, orange). I realized that there is quite a lot of gold and orange in the greens, and an orange influence in the flowers, too. I really love the lighting effects on the leaves, and on the sphagnum moss. The trick to achieving an effect of strong lighting is to contrast light with dark mainly, and secondarily to contrast color temperatures between light and shadow areas.

I’m seeing that the background is quite busy. I will just go ahead and do the daisies, then see if and how much I need to soften and simplify the background.